


Minding the Pepper

by betheflame



Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2020 [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, BAMF Pepper Potts, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Married Sex, Oral Sex, Protective Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:00:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26009161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: Bucky could see his wife was Done.He'd had a heads up from Tony that none of the negotiations had gone well, that Pepper had done everything she could and it still wasn't enough and she was taking it Personally. Which meant he knew what his night held. First, he would feed her. Then, he'd make sure there were fresh sheets on the bed, so she could climb into a clean bed after her bath. Then? Then he'd make her scream.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Pepper Potts
Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647499
Comments: 18
Kudos: 58





	Minding the Pepper

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes fics are self-indulgent, and then sometimes they're SUPER self-indulgent. 
> 
> Welcome to one of my favorite headcanons, friends.

Bucky could see his wife was Done.

He'd had a heads up from Tony that none of the negotiations had gone well, that Pepper had done everything she could and it still wasn't enough and she was taking it Personally. Which meant he knew what his night held. First, he would feed her. Then, he'd make sure there were fresh sheets on the bed, so she could climb into a clean bed after her bath. Then? Then he'd make her scream.

It wasn’t until a year after their first accidental stumble into bed that Pepper was drunk enough to tell Bucky her deepest fantasy - the one she’d never said out loud, ever.

_“I want an entire night…” she paused, her voice small and Bucky held his breath so as to not scare her, “an entire night where I don’t make a single decision. I don’t want to decide what I eat, or what I wear, or anything. I want someone to eat me out, fuck me hard, put me to bed, and pamper the living hell out of me and I don’t want to ask for any of it or decide anything else.”_

_He’d been running his hand lazily over her stomach from his big spoon position and he kept that up as she talked. When she was finished, however, he started nuzzling at her neck. “Some ground rules first,” he whispered in her ear between nibbles along the elegant column that had been driving him wild since he first laid eyes on her, “and your wish is my command.”_

_Her breath caught and she turned in his arms. “You’d do that?”_

_“Doll, I’d lasso the moon if it would make your life easier.”_

_She smiled softly. “Okay, George Bailey, straight answer.”_

_He kissed her gently. “Ginny, you hold the world on your shoulders and no matter what I do, I can never really lift it off. So you’re telling me that fucking you senseless and spoiling you rotten would make you feel better, even for a few hours? Explain where this is a hardship for me.”_

_“It’s... “_

_“If you say selfish, I will growl very loudly.”_

_She giggled, which was his desired goal. “I love you.”_

It had taken a few misfires before they’d gotten the routine down. There were a few Not Great times and after Doctor Google wasn’t particularly helpful, they agreed to go to a sex therapist, who encouraged them to treat it like a kink scene. Safewords, boundaries, negotiations, the whole nine.

“Hey babe,” she sighed as she went through the motions of putting away her purse, hanging up her coat, taking off her jewelry, and shedding her shoes. If he didn’t stop her soon, she’d go upstairs and get into her yoga gear and start practicing.

He could tell she was beyond yoga tonight.

“Virginia Anne,” he replied, in an even, but commanding tone.

Her eyes snapped to him. “James?”

“Last decision of the night - do you want to do yoga and then eat? Or do you want to eat and the rest of the night is mine?”

She cocked her head to one side as though she was weighing her options. “I didn’t eat lunch.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s 7:30, babe.”

“I know,” she sighed. “It’s just that I-”

He crossed the room and cut her off with a kiss. “Right now, I don’t care who thought they were more important than you, because you won’t allow me to kill them anyway. So right now, I want you to sit down and I’ll go reheat some of that chicken parm Sam dropped off last night and you’re going to watch Chopped and hand me your phone.”

She blinked a few times and smiled. “Thank you.”

* * *

_WhatsApp: Framily Chat_

_Bucky: Pepper’s offline the rest of the night._

_Bucky: Some international emergency? Deal with it yourself._

_Tony: You know, I liked you better when you worked for me._

_Steve: We all love how you love her, don’t listen to Tony_

_Bucky: Oh, I stopped about four mins after meeting him, don’t worry. Even when I did work for him._

_Tony: I’m offended. Wounded. Husband, defend my honor._

_Steve: Let us know if you need anything, Buck._

_Tony: Obviously, I’m being a sarcastic dick. Bad day for me too._

_Tony: Take care of her, James. And never tell us how._

_Clint: Yes, that._

* * *

“Ginny.” Bucky’s whisper pulled Pepper out of the small nap she didn’t even know she had taken and she smiled up at her husband. She reached for his face and he leaned his cheek into her hand briefly - the pressure grounding her to this moment, where she was Bucky’s wife and not Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark International.

“Baby, I’ve run the bath. Let’s go get you in it, and then I’ll come back down here and wash the dishes while you soak a bit.”

“I want you in the tub with me,” she rasped slightly, her voice having given out somewhere around 4pm that day.

“Well, that can absolutely be arranged, but I have also met you and if I let things crust on the dishes tomorrow will be World War Eight and so let’s get you in bubbles and I’ll throw everything in the dishwasher and come back,” Bucky said with a grin.

She giggled a little at this man who knew her, even the things about her he didn’t like or understand, and let herself be led upstairs.

* * *

_Ties, check. Scarf blindfold, check. Lube, check. Both vibrators, check and check._

Pepper was finishing up her bath and when she stepped out, Bucky would blow dry her hair and pull it into a loose braid. Then, he’d lead her to their guest room where he’d set everything up earlier in the day. Being a work-from-home tech writer had a lot of perks, and one was that he had time to plot when needed.

(One of the not perks was whenever he reported on something other than Stark Tech and gave it a glowing review and his wife was grouchy for a few hours/days. He was trying to get his editor to move him off sustainable energy but that’s what his PhD was in and it was a whole mess and so he knew he was part of Pepper’s stress. He planned on being the entirety of her stress relief.)

“James?” Her call drifted through the air and he quickly returned to their bedroom to find her in her fluffiest robe with slightly damp hair. She looked so young, and yet so tired, and he wondered if any of the terrible people who called her terrible names understood the toll it had taken on her when Tony’s genius accelerated faster than any of them had anticipated and instead of asking for help as often as she should have, she simply taught herself how to do all the jobs he needed. The day they’d all gotten her to hire an assistant had been a miraculous one for them all.

_“Everyone thinks I’m some sort of magic genius,” Tony told Bucky about six weeks after Bucky and Pepper decided to move from fuck buddies to dating, “but at least 80% of this is her. I would still be fucking around in a basement lab at Dad’s firm if she hadn’t looked at me and said we could make money off of it all. She’s the one who came up with the corporate structure, who knew when we should go public, who did all of that work. She’s the genius and I think you’re the first one who noticed.”_

_Bucky winced slightly. “It took me too long.”_

_Tony grinned. “She wasn’t ready for you either until now. I’ll let you in on a little secret, Buckaroo. Our Pep has no idea how to take care of herself.”_

_Bucky snorted. “Not a secret, Stark.”_

_“And yet, no one else has figured it out.”_

He looped her hair through his hands and pulled her head backwards slightly so he could kiss her forehead before he got to work. He brushed with the soft bristle brush - the one that didn’t really do anything except send shivers down Pepper’s spine and therefore did everything. As he worked, she talked a little about how the day went and he let her. This was the part where she could get stuff out of her head if she needed.

“It’s not like it started off badly,” she began and he focused closely on her tone and what she wasn’t saying as much as what she was. The details were important and they’d rehash those again, and again, and again before anything was resolved, but what was imperative in this moment was how she _felt_.

And Bucky’s wife felt ignored, defeated, and unnecessary.

Well. He could fix that.

* * *

His tongue worked his way into her vagina like it was a third finger and she arched off the bed. She wasn’t dripping the way people in romance novels always said women did when men did this and she’d felt so ashamed of that for so long. She had one of the hottest men on the planet at her beck and call and she couldn't make her body react that way all the time.

She’d told their therapist that at one point and Bucky had made this face like “woman are you insane” and simply opened his phone and ordered a bunch of lube off of Amazon.

Now they had lube he liked the taste of and she liked the feel of and he’d learned where his fingers should go and where they shouldn’t and how much pressure she liked with his tongue and when it was time to -

“BUCKY.”

Bite at her clit.

She felt his smile and reached for his head, winding her fingers through his hair, not to direct him but to let him know she loved him, that she was grateful for him, that he was grounding her in this moment with just the two of them.

The blindfold helped - she liked sensory deprivation - but the ties only did sometimes. He’d tried earlier in the night to keep her fully restrained, but she was too upset for that - she needed to touch him. He’d used the Rabbit vibrator for a while as he sucked on her nipples and massaged her shoulders. She never came from just the vibrator, but it helped her relax and she loved that he knew that.

“Gorgeous,” he rumbled from between her legs, “do you want me?”

Instead of words, she found his face and tugged slightly. He chuckled and she felt both him and the bed shift. Soon, his thumb was on her clit and his cock was working its way into her and he found their rhythm quickly.

She came first, and then he did, which was their preferred order since Bucky loved the way she clenched around him mid-orgasm, as though her body was helping him as much as her soul wanted to.

“I love you,” she moaned.

“So fucking much, woman,” Bucky heaved out as he collapsed on top of her and nuzzled her neck.

He stayed in her until she shoved him off - he’d stay connected to her all night if he could figure out a way - and then he set about cleaning them both up. She hated sleeping without anything on her bottom half, so he helped her wiggle into some silk sleep shorts before pulling her into the little spoon position. He went to take her blindfold off and she stilled his hand.

“Not yet.”

Bucky was quiet as he kissed her ear and pulled her closer.

“They made me feel small,” she said after a few moments of silence. “They made me feel so, so small.”

“And yet,” Bucky replied, “you are a goddess.”

“You make me feel that way.”

“Am I a liar?”

“No,” she said with a smile, “just delusional.”

“No, Madam Chief of the World,” he said, employing the title he used for her when it was just the two of them, “we’re not doing this. Do you trust me or them?”

“You, baby, always.”

“Then I declare you a well loved and hopefully satiated goddess.”

She knew better than to respond, so instead pressed her hips back into him slightly, one of their signals that she loved him so much she could never feel close enough to him.

And then she let her eyes drift, knowing they’d stay tangled for exactly six seconds after she fell asleep because she’d get restless or too hot and she’d punch him accidentally or his shoulder would fall asleep and he’d roll her over. But for this moment? She reveled in the safety of his arms, in how he made her feel, and in how loved she truly was.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked the story, I'd love to know! Kudos and comments are life giving. If you're not sure what to say in the comment, know that I take keyboard smashes and emojis as full love. So, if you liked it more than just a kudos, dropping a ":heart:" is great and I thank you in advance.
> 
> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Put on the Suit Stony Server. ](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS)  
>   
> Oh! And FestiveFerret and I have a [fandom podcast](http://www.podonthesuit.com) if you're so inclined.  
>   
> 


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